PGA DFS Core Plays: Fortinet Championship
Top-ranked DFS player, Notorious, breaks down his favorite PGA DFS picks at various salary ranges for this week’s tournament. Who should you be building around? Find out below.
There are a lot of reasons why I love golf, but one of them is the shortest offseason in all of sports. The Tour Championship was just a few weeks ago and in the blink of an eye, the new season is starting up this week in California. We aren’t going to see many big names play in events over the next few months, but we still get the chance to bet on golf and play DFS. And don’t forget, the Ryder Cup is at the end of September.
Wine will be flowing this week, as the PGA Tour visits the beautiful Napa Valley (so I hear). I’m more of a beer or seltzer drinker myself, but to each their own. In fact, I tried to like wine at one point in my life. I was slowly coming around to the taste when my friend and I decided to play wine pong. Instead of ping pong balls, we used Skittles. I indeed tasted the rainbow, the entire next day in fact. Unfortunately, the rainbow was coming out of me in the form of projectile vomit. Ah, the good old days.
This week’s event will be held at the North Course at Silverado Resort and Spa. This course is a Par 72 that measures 7,123 yards. This is quite short by PGA Tour standards and golfers have been able to take the place apart when the weather has held up. More often than not, this is outside of the top 25 courses on tour in terms of difficulty. Water is in play on only two holes and while the fairways are tree-lined, missing them hasn’t resulted in a big penalty over the years.
The average driving distance here is well below tour average, likely because the course features dog legs and very narrow fairways. In fact, the fairways are about 25 yards wide on average in the landing areas that PGA Tour golfers are hitting into. The greens are quite small (5,400 square feet on average) and feature a mix of bentgrass and poa annua grass. There are only a handful of golfers on tour that like to putt on poa, so be on the lookout for quotes from golfers this week.
Field Breakdown Video & Model Download Link for the Fortinet Championship
Given the fact that the course isn’t overly long and the fact that hitting fairways is difficult, I lean toward total driving as my preferred off the tee metric this week. Emiliano Grillo and Brendan Steele were two of the best in that category and they have won this event three times between the two of them. Iron play is important every week and I’m bumping up putting a bit more than usual. While the greens here are small, scrambling is fairly straightforward.
PGA DFS Picks: DraftKings & FanDuel Core Plays for Fortinet Championship
Field Size:
- 156 golfers
Cut Rule:
- Top 65 and ties
Weather Forecasts
Golf Course
- Silverado Resort and Spa (North Course)
- Location: Napa Valley, California
- Par 72 — 7,123 yards
- Difficulty: 2022 (21st), 2021 (32nd), 2020 (44th), 2019 (19th), 2018 (29th)
- Fairway width: 25 yards in landing areas
- Green size: 5,400 square feet
- Green type: bentgrass/poa annua
- Water is in play on two holes
- 2022 field stats: distance (289 yards), accuracy (47%), GIR (66%)
Event Notes
- Fairly easy tree-line course that features small bent/poa greens
- Fairways are tough to hit, but the rough isn’t super penal
- GIR% and scrambling success rate both above tour average
- Four par fives on the card, but fairly tough to reach in two
What to Look For
- Strokes gained approach
- Total driving
- Strokes gained putting (emphasis on bent/poa)
- Birdie or better %
Core Plays
Max Homa
DK: $11,000 — FD: $12,000
Total Driving — 18
SG: APP — 3
Greens in Regulation — 19
Birdie or Better % — 1
SG: Putting (Bent/Poa) — 1
Stat Rank — 1
Noto Rating — 97.7
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